Tangled Web Woven
by Bluesheep
Summary: The Warlord of Illusion, Dais, and The Senshi of Time, Setsuna, have managed to find each other in romance. But for the two elegant, solitary immortals, it is not meant to last...


  
Now that she's back in the atmosphere/with drops of Jupiter in her hair/ She acts like summer and walks like rain/ remindin' her there's a time to change/ Since the return of her stay on the moon/She listens like spring and she talks like June/ Tell me/ Did you sail across the sun/ Did you make it to the milky way to see the light's all faded/ Man, heaven is over-rated/Tell me/ did you fall from a shooting star/ one without a permanent scar and then you missed me while you were lookin' for yourself out there...  
-"Drops of Jupiter" by Train  
  


  
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Her ruby eyes, they are strange, world-weary, and yet beautiful... They'll close the gateway of tears... stopping the flow of the hourglass of time...   
Dais sat infront of a small aquarium containing a small brown spider, which he pretended to focus on. He was actually looking through the somewhat spotted glass of the aquarium to a fairly tall, green-haired woman whose slim fingers brushed against the keys on a laptop computer, swiftly and softly, Like a spider weaving it's web, he remarked to himself, practiced and instinctive.   
Setsuna's red eyes flitted up to the flickering white screen, a stream of codes worthy of Ami and Mia streaming over it, in synch with her slim fingers and the soft clacking of the keyboard. A delicate smile played on her petal-soft pink lips. "I can feel that eye on me, Dais... Getting impatient?"  
Dais tossed his hair slightly, lifting the spider out of the aquarium. "Quite impatient. We're going to be late."  
Setsuna closed the laptop, looking to him. "We are?"  
Dais pointed to a clock on the wall. 8:45. The play started in 15 minutes. "If you bothered to wear a watch you would have noticed."  
Setsuna glanced briefly at the clock. "I know, I know. I'm sorry, but clocks and watches have so little to do with the concept of time that they tend to make me... giggle."  
Dais smirked a little, returning the spider to it's aquarium and brushing at the lapel of his maroon coloured suit. "Really? I've never heard you giggle before. Sounds as though it could be interesting."  
Setsuna stood and straightened her strapless black dress. Her own design. So was his suit, both of which she was very proud of.   
"Pity you'll never find out. Let's go."   
She summoned her staff into her right hand and in an instant they found themselves behind a large theatre. Setsuna willed her Time Staff away and, with Dais, walked around to the front of the building. They walked into the lobby, presenting the uniformed man at the entrance to the operahouse-style theatre with two tickets to a presentation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.   
The pair wove their way into a private balcony, high up and near the back, well isolated as both of them specified.  
Setsuna smiled one of her rare little smiles. "I knew we'd get here on time."  
Dais sighed and rolled his one good eye. "Of course. How silly of me to ever question you, oh exuberant mistress of time." They both sat down in soft velvet-upholstered chairs.   
He turned to face her. "Why were we in that office?"  
"That was Doctor Mizuno's office..."  
"I gathered that from the nameplate on the door."  
"If you'd let me finish..."  
"Very well."  
"I was altering a file she'd created...inserting a virus."  
"Why would you do that to one of Ami's mother's files?" Dais smiled a little, intrigued by the possibility of a dark motive behind Setsuna's actions.  
"She was about to discover something... But it's not for her to discover quite yet.... A simple anomaly. A blip in my temporal radar."   
"She has a cute pet there, though."  
"She named it 'Puri-chan'"  
"Pudding. Charming." He sneered a little.  
Setsuna laughed. "Hush. The plays starting." She pointed at the semi-curcular stage, and an actor dressed as Orsino, and yet another as Valentine, standing on the stage and beginning the Orsino's monologue.  
  
"If music be the food of love, play on,   
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,   
The appetite may sicken, and so die.  
That strain again, it has a dying fall:  
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound  
That breathes upon a bank of violets,  
Stealing and giving odour. Enough, no more;  
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before."  
  
Dais smiled a little, spotting Anubis in the third row. Of course. He loves Shakespeare... His smile broadened as he felt Setsuna lean her head against his shoulder, the soft green odango on the back of her head brushing his against cheek.  


  
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----   


  
Dais removed his jacket and tossed it onto his low bed, yawning a little. He leaned infront of the doorway to his personal washroom, peering in after Setsuna. She had discarded her dress and filled the tub with boiling water. She kneeled in the small showering platform, common in so many Japanese households, and washed her hair with the small bendable showerhead, the beads of water rolling off her pristine skin.  
"Don't watch if you're not going to join. It's rather unnerving." Setsuna turned off the flow of water to the showerhead and stood, stepping into the steaming bathtub.  
Dais made a mock look of indifference. "Well if you insist." He shed his clothing and stepped directly into the bathtub, pulling his hair underwater rather than washing it as Setsuna had.   
He shifted around behind her, then, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulled her back against him.  
Setsuna laughed softly at him as he planted a trail of kisses from her shoulder, up her neck, to her earlobe, to which he dealt a tentative little nip. "Such changes have taken place in you, *kumo-chan... They seem to be for the better, at least from my point of view."  
He smiled. "Well I get a little out of it, too."  
Setsuna stood and wrapped her hair up in a towel, scrubbing the excess moisture from her body with another towel. She walked out of the washroom and crawled into the bed. Dais watched her leave, but remained in the tub for several minutes before drying himself off and walking outside. He sat down behind Setsuna and purred seductively in her ear.   
"Trista....."  
No response.  
"Playing hard to get?" He smiled. "I always did like games..."  
No response.  
Dais poked her shoulder. "Setsunaaa...."  
A suddenly loud snore was her only response. A large sweatdrop formed on the left side of his head. Setsuna rolled over, a flailing arm smacked him in the face before finding a place under her cheek.  
The sweatdrop doubled in size. "Setsuna!"  
She yawned and opened her garnet coloured eyes, narrowed slightly in annoyance. "What?"  
Dais paused, taken aback by her cold glare. Think like a woman think like a woman think like a woman think like a... "...I just wanted to cuddle...?"   
She lowered her eyebrows and sighed, relaxing. "I know it's your nature to be deceitful and all but I would appreciate it if you kept the 'verbal illusions' at bay."  
"As you wish." He chuckled softly and closed his eyes, deep in an imaginative dream within minutes.  
  
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----   
  
Dais yawned and rolled over, reaching out for Setsuna but not finding her. She left again...She always leaves....I don't know whether to take it personally or not...He stood and rummaged through his wardrobe for suitable clothing: a bluish-white shirt, matching maroon pants and jacket, a pale salmon coloured scarf and some plain black shoes.   
He ran a brush through his curly white hair and adjusted his eyepatch before he ventured out of his room and into the hallway of the house he shared with 'the others'. He stumbled sleepily down the stairs and followed the smell of pancakes and re-heated pizza to the kitchen.   
He sat down on one of the stools surrounding the island in the center of the kitchen, between a blue-haired boy reading a book, Rowen, and a bluey-brown haired boy with his face practically buried in a mess of pancakes and two-day old pizza, Kento. An auburn haired boy, Cye, was pacing between a blender and two frying pans.   
Cye smiled. "Good morning, Dais. Anything you want for breakfast?" The boy had a very pleasant British accent and a voice that, like Setsuna's, was rather easy on one's ears.  
Dais yawned a little. "No, that's alright, Cye. I'll get something later."  
Kento finished his meal and turned to Dais. "So?"  
"So what?"  
"How was last night?"  
"The play was good."  
Kento cleared his throat and smirked suggestively. "No...After that. I saw that tall, green haired woman accompany you into your room last night. Didn't see her leave. She still in there or something?"  
"Hold your tongue, rocks-for-brains."  
Cye stopped the blender and put the yellow contents of one of the frying pans on a plate. "Oh leave him alone, Kento. At least she can make him smile."  
Kento snorted. "If I remember correctly, seeing me try to kill all of you put a smile on his face, too."  
Rowen threw his book at Kento, chuckling good-naturedly. "Lay off."  
The book bounced harmlessly off Kento's back. "Naw. I think it's cute. They can both lurk in the shadows together. Dais finally has a friend."  
Cye smacked Kento with a spatula. "Be nice, Kento."  
Dais sighed and shook his head. "I'm sharing a house with the three Stooges."  
Rowen laughed and cupped his chin in her hands. "You're forgetting Ryo, Sage, White Blaze, Anubis, Cale and Sekhmet."  
Cye laughed. "Haha. Cute, Dais. Could you bring Cale something for me?" He poured the contents of the blender into a blue plastic cup, tossing in a few sliced bananas. Dais looked at it curiously.   
"He drinks health shakes?"  
"No. He feeds it to stray dogs."  
"What's with the bananas, then?"  
" I dunno. Says they make the dogs friskier..."  
Rowen chuckled a little. Dais just nodded and walked up to Cale's room.   
He smashed his fist against the door a few times, not hearing any response. "Lazy..." He put the cup infront of the door and walked way. He looked into the small library at the end of the hall to find Setsuna, a pencil in her mouth and three books open infront of her. "I thought you left."  
"I did. At three. I got back a quarter of an hour ago."  
"...Just say fifteen minutes."  
"Fine. Fifteen minutes."  
Dais walked in and peered over her shoulder. "Why are you reading about medicine?"  
"Ms Mizuno got me curious about a few things... Don't breath down my neck, spider-chan."  
He leaned back a little in response. "I wish I could get you curious about a few things. Might have a little more fun..."  
"Beg pardon?  
"...Nothing..."  
  
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A few hours later, Dais found himself carrying eight shopping bags and trailing behind Setsuna.  
"How can one woman need 5 pairs of shoes and 8 different scarves?"  
"The scarves are for you. They suit you."  
"How many pinks scarves do I need, then?"  
"They're not pink. There's rose, sunset, peach, blush, flirt, raspberry, pastel ruby and crimson dawn."  
"Oh of course. How silly of me..." Dais rolled his eye.  
"Don't do that." Setsuna led him into a department store. They walked around browsing, until Setsuna wandered into a large cluster of bra aisles. Dais groaned, hiding behind all his bags.  
"Oh don't whine...Hmm....White or off-white...?"  
"Whichever one'll get us out of here faster..."  
"Baby."  
She gave up and wandered into the Teen Apparel section, browsing rows of dark jeans and assymetrical tube tops.  
"Since when do you buy stuff like this?"  
"I don't. I use it in my clothing designs. You can't find half these prints in a fabric store."  
Dais sighed. "C'n I go look at the toys now?"  
She giggled at him. Don't patronize me, spider-chan.....Go on, then. Meet me at my car in a half hour and don't lose any of those bags." Setsuna kissed him abruptly before shooing him away.  
  
Dais wove through aisles of r/c trucks and Barbie dolls. He paused to investigate a collection of stuffed animals, noting a rather cute plushie of Gourry Gabriev from Slayers. Setsuna always did have a thing for knights...I suppose he would count...  
He turned sharply, a tall, curvaceous red-haired woman behind him. She jumped.  
His eye scanned her. "Why were you sneaking up on me?"  
"I...wasn't. I was just wondering what was so interesting." Her voice was rather rich, not light like Setsuna's.  
"..Doll." He nodded to the toy in his free hand.  
"It's cute." She smiled at him and the smile, like an icepick, chipped a large chunk from his heart, stolen right from Setsuna's grasp.  
"Yeah. I guess."  
"So why are you looking at plushies? All alone, at that."  
"Just because."  
She smiled wider. "What does it take to get a laugh out of you?"  
"Something sharp and a boy band."  
She giggled a very pleasant giggle, which forced a smile onto his lips, and eventually he too was laughing his rather soft laugh in time with her giggles.  
  
They began conversing, remaining in the toy aisle for another 45 minutes.  
She sighed pleasantly. "So do you want to go get a coffee or something?"  
"Oh no. I'm supposed to meet someone."  
"Alright. Well..." She pulled a pen and a piece of paper from her purse, writing down a phone number and an e-mail address, "Feel free to call me." She turned and walked away, leaving him to his own devices.   
He ignored the Gourry plushie and walked outside, finding Setsuna leaning against her red sportscar and glaring at him with slitted eyes.  
"Took you long enough."  
"Oh...It did?"  
"I've been waiting for nearly twenty minutes."  
He blinked sharply, taken aback. "That long? I'm sorry, Setsuna...I got caught up with something."  
She turned her back to him and got in the car. "Put the bags in the trunk and get in."  
He opened the trunk and put the bags in, as she requested. He sighed. Well THAT was one hell of a big blunder...She's going to give me the cold shoulder for days now...Never gonna hear the end of this...He got in the car and put his seat-belt on.  
"I'm sorry Setsuna. I lost track of time."  
"I'd think that would be obvious."  
She turned the car on and drove, rather aggressively, out of the parking lot.  
  
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----   
  
Dais turned the piece of paper around in his fingers, mulling over it.   
Setsuna was however in the kitchen, talking to Cye; a rather serious looking man with long red hair and red eyebrows which split at the ends, Anubis; and a green haired man with darkened eyelids and small, slitted pupils, Sekhmet.   
Cye poured some green tea into a floral cup infront of Setsuna. "I wouldn't worry. Most men do that at one time or another. Call it our one true fault."  
Anubis leaned back a little. "He does tend to be a little scatterbrained."  
Sekhmet giggled a little. "You're lucky if that's the only time he lets you down."  
Setsuna sipped her tea quietly, responding after a few moments. "I know. I just have a bad feeling, is all."  
Cye seemed to shrug this off, as did Sekhmet, but Anubis frowned slightly. "Oh?"  
She paused, then spoke, "Well... I get visions sometimes... Of iminent danger and things that could effect the flow of time down to the minutest detail. I just have a bad feeling about him, now."  
Cye laughed a little. "I always have a bad feeling about him. Old habits die hard."   
Sekhmet tittered softly, prodding softly at the young british boy. "Indeed..."  
She laughed a little. "Well...It was probably just a fluke. He's not that inconsiderate."  
  
Dais picked up the phone and dialed the number. He waited two rings before she picked up.  
"Moshi moshi, Cordelia here..."  
  
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----   
  
Dais walked into the kitchen, Anubis and Setsuna the only two remaining there.  
Setsuna smiled faintly at him. "Dais, I'm sorry. I really overreacted..."  
"Setsuna... could I talk to you alone... please?"  
Anubis stood. "That's my cue." He stepped outside quickly, closing the door behind him.  
Setsuna frowned."Is... Everything alright, Dais?"  
Dais paced slowly. "I think we should... see other people, Trista."  
"You do?" Setsuna looked up at him. He nodded slowly in affirmation.  
She nodded her head slowly, her eyebrows raising. "A-... Alright."  
  
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----   
  
Dais found himself and Cordelia together frequently, while Setsuna simply faded from his life.  
Cordelia purred gently in his ear every now and then, and he felt uncharacteristically happy and at peace around her.  
One night, Dais and Cordelia were sitting together on the side of a small lake, watching the moonlight dance over the dark waters.   
She laughed nonchalantly. "So...You have the Armour of Illusion..."  
"...The what?" He laughed nervously.   
"Oh come on. I know. Why else do you think i'd choose you?"  
"Choose me? What are you talking about?"  
"Well, you didn't think I wanted romance, did you?"  
"I..-"  
"I need your power. There are two ways I can get it. I can kill you, or you can pledge yourself to me."  
"Or I can walk away." He stood. "I don't work for anyone anymore."  
"I'm sorry but it won't be that simple. And don't even THINK of calling on your armour."  
He paused, narrowing his eye. "I'll not be anyone's tool again. My power is my own."  
"Then I'm afraid you'll just have to die." She stood and vaulted into the air, hovering for a few seconds before dissapearing. Dais looked around nervously. Suddenly his arms flew up over his face as the ground around him exploded. He screamed loudly, preparing for a devastating if not mortal blow, but suddenly everything just froze. His world was occupied only by debris and flame, poised in the air, and an eerie silence. Infront of him, only a slight distance away, Setsuna stood, transformed into her senshi fuku, her staff held out infront of her.  
A blue glow clung to her like a film.  
"Setsuna..?"  
"It's not your time yet."  
"You stopped time... YOU CAN'T!"  
"...I have."  
He was suddenly transported out of range of the flames and time restarted, the flames and speeding debris encompassing the area where Setsuna stood.  
He sank to his knees, feeling almost baffled by these last few occurances.  
"...Puu?"  
  
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----   
  
He sat in the second row of pews in a large church, looking forward at a large statue of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by small candles. He'd already lit one. It had blown out. It was too close to the window. He supposed.  
A minister sat next to him. "I've never seen you here before."  
"...Spur of the moment visit."  
"One who never comes to church, then suddenly appears and stay for hours on end without moving a muscle...He must be burdened with some secret...Have you ever been to a confessional?"  
"No. Will...Will she forgive anything?"  
"She can forgive things you or I wouldn't ever be capable of forgiving. You know, a secret untold can only compact and grow...If you decide to talk, I'll be in my office."  
Dais nodded numbly as the minister stood slowly and left.  
A plump, briny tear appeared in the corner of his eye and like a bead of hot wax, seemed to stick there, but then rolled down his flat cheek before dropping onto the collar of his shirt.  
  
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*kumo=spider  
  
  
This story is COPYRIGHT JANINE HAWKINS, 2001!!!


End file.
